Can I help you in any way? Quoting sources

“Hello, thank you for visiting. Can I help you in any way?” If you’ve browsed our TAA website, you’ve likely seen those words in the chat box that appears on the screen. We’re often asked by visitors if we’re “real”. Then those who realize that we are, and that we are there to help, ask questions that you may have as well.

In this series of “Can I help you in any way?” posts, we’re highlighting some of the questions people have asked through the TAA Live Chat feature of our site and the responses we have for those questions. In this post, we’re focused on a question about properly quoting source information.

Recently someone came on the chat with a very specific question about punctuation in quoted material. They said, “I was looking for a reference on how to properly alter punctuation to end a quote when using portions as multiple choice answers… i.e., can I switch a comma to a period rather than leaving the quote open?”

They gave the following example:

“Nature’s first green is gold, Her hardest hue to hold. Her early leaf’s a flower; But only so an hour.”

They asked, “If I wanted to use first line of this quote as an answer, can I write ‘Nature’s first green is gold.’?”. My first question was whether they adhered to a particular style (i.e. APA or MLA). They happen to use the Chicago style.

Although my expertise is not in English, nor in the various style manuals, we do have links to wonderful resources, and I provided the following three from Citation Machine for potential sources of answers to their question.